Star Wars Day 2010

Happy Star Wars Day! May the 4th be with you and all that. This is my fourth year in a row of posting Star Wars covers and the supply is dwindling. Well, actually there are endless covers, just few very good ones. Next year, I may have to pull a George Lucas and start recycling old posts, zing!

Voice Male - Twentieth Century Fox Fanfare [originally composed by Alfred Newman]
Originally composed by Alfred Newman in 1933, I think it's fair to say that the 20th Century Fox fanfare is strongly associated with the Star Wars series. I may be mistaken, but I think the extended version was specifically orchestrated for the films. Voice Male is an all-male a cappella group from the Netherlands Belgium... not to be confused with the all-male a cappella group from Utah of the same name.

Brooke Sofferman - Imperial March
A fine cover from jazz drummer Brooke Sofferman's album Fine Whines, which also contains a cover of Led Zeppelin's Kashmir.

The Alexandria Kleztet - Cantina Band
I've always wanted a klezmer Cantina Band cover and now thanks to The Alexandria Kleztet, my life is complete.

Sex Wing Starfighter - Yub Nub
Sex Wing Starfighter is a Star Wars-themed punk band with a free album on their bandcamp site. This cover of the Ewok celebration song is featured as a bonus track.

Return of the Star Wars Covers

May 4th (i.e. "May the Fourth be with you...") passed by without any fanfare and at least one reader wondered what happened to my annual Star Wars covers post. In fact, they had even marked it in their calendar to check Fong Songs that day (how flattering!) and I sure let them down like The Phantom Menace. Fortunately for me, there is a less punny date that I can and will celebrate as Star Wars Day and that's today, May 25th, the 32nd anniversary of the release of Star Wars. Apparently the appropriate gift for one's 32nd anniversary (who knew there was such a thing?) is "conveyances", meaning transportation.

While I thought I'd be out of worthy covers by this point, I did manage to scrounge up a few gems. Happy Star Wars Day!

Maynard Ferguson - Star Wars
This funky disco instrumental cover by the late legendary Canadian trumpet player and bandleader Maynard Ferguson is fitting since he was actually born on the other Star Wars Day: May 4th, 1928.

Lightspeed Champion - Star Wars Medley
A live medley by UK indie artist Lightspeed Champion, who's no stranger to covers having released several free "official bootlegs" including a cover album of Green Day's Nimrod, which I can't track down for the life of me (hint, hint). He also does a nice acoustic take on The Strokes' Heart in a Cage on ShootThePlayer.com.

The Swingle Singers - Star Wars
The Swingle Singers are a famous a cappella group whose original incarnation dates back to 1962. I remember my piano teacher telling me about them years ago since a lot of their albums are vocal interpretations of classical pieces. This comes from their 1997 album Screen Tested, which features their distinct covers of orchestral film scores.

Ron Carter - The Asteroid Field
The Asteroid Field is my favourite piece of Star Wars music, in fact possibly even my favourite composition of any film soundtrack. This jazz cover is from Ron Carter's Empire Jazz, though I find it overly long at just over 9 minutes and pretty much unrecognizable from the original after the first minute. I do have to admit it has a brilliant album cover (as seen at the top of the post).

Epica - The Imperial March
A throbbing cover by Dutch metal band Epica from their new live album The Classical Conspiracy, which also contains unlikely "symphonic metal" medleys of Danny Elfman's Spider-Man score and Klaus Badelt & Hans Zimmer's scores to the Pirates of the Carribean series.

Kuricorder - The Imperial March
From a 2005 Japanese compilation of Star Wars covers Ukulele Force (yes, ukulele based covers!), this is an irresistibly cute rendition of Darth Vader's theme that reminds me of Peter & The Wolf or some sort of Zelda forest march.

James Hill - Mos Eisley Spaceport
Better known as Cantina Band, this cover is also from Ukulele Force. Though almost all the performers on the album are Japanese, this contribution is from Canadian ukulele virtuoso James Hill and it previously appeared on his 2003 release On the Other Hand. After poking around his website and listening to many MP3 samples, I was forced to order a couple of his CDs that I'm eagerly awaiting in my mailbox. Super Mario and Inspector Gadget are a couple of the covers interspersed between his originals-- and they all sound great! I wish he had been on my radar earlier since he just had a CD release show and ukulele workshop a few weeks ago here in Vancouver! And since I am a budding ukulele player...

Riverboat's Jazz Band - Cantina Band
Here's a fantastic New Orleans jazz cover via France by Riverboat's Jazz Band.

Swingtips - Cantina Band
Another Cantina Band cover from Arizona swing band the Swingtips.

The Solids - Ewok Celebration
This is an amusing acoustic cover of the Ewok celebration song from Return of the Jedi by The Solids who may best be known for the theme to the sitcom How I Met our Mother.

Erich Korngold - Kings Row
Now this may be old news in Star Wars circles, but I was quite surprised to come across this bit of musical controversy while looking for covers. This is the main theme from the 1942 film Kings Gold scored by Erich Korngold, which is a clear inspiration for the main Star Wars theme, the first eight notes being pretty much the same. I've seen lawsuits based on weaker similarities than this. A portion of this track seems to have also "inspired" John Williams' Superman theme. My ears were shocked when they heard this.

Speaking of Korngold and inspiration, earlier this year Fong Songs fave Danny Michel (who I'm going to see in concert later this week) collaborated with the Art of Time Ensemble for the 2nd time with their Source & Inspiration series. In 2007, Danny composed two new songs based on the work of Franz Schubert and this year's spotlight was on Korngold. The whole concert which also features Martin Tielli and John Southworth is available for streaming on CBC Radio 2's Concerts on Demand.

May the Fourth

Here we go again, folks... Happy Star Wars Day! I pretty much used up all my Star Wars covers last year, but here's what I scrounged up this time 'round. John Williams, here's to you. Looking forward to hearing the ol' Indy theme in the theatres once more.


Symphony X - Star Wars Suite
Symphony X is a prog rock band where progressive equals "more guitars". Here's their interpretation of the Star Wars theme with over 15 guitar tracks... since 13 or 14 was surely not enough. However, it just can't compete with the sheer gusto of Anchorhead whose "darth metal" Shredisode IV still awaits its inevitable sequels.

David Matthews - Star Wars
David Matthews - Princess Leia's Theme
A funk keyboardist who was James Brown's bandleader starting in the 1970's, David Matthews released his jazz-fusion-sci-fi-disco concept album Dune the same year Star Wars hit theatres. Side A: original compositions based on Frank Herbert's sci-fi classic Dune. Side B: covers of these two Star Wars tracks, David Bowie's Space Oddity, and the theme from Silent Running(?!), the 1972 Douglas Trumbull film.

Evil Genius Orchestra - The Throne Room
The Evil Genius Orchestra has a whole album of Star Wars lounge covers called Cocktails in the Cantina, which tackles more than just the usual Star Wars themes. Where else can you hear a cover of Lando's Palace or Ben Kenobi's Death/Tie Fighter Attack?

Spekkosaurus - Star Wars vs. House of the Rising Sun
A piano arrangement that cleverly mashes up two familiar melodies.

Richard Cheese - Darth Vader's Theme
Darth Vader's Theme AKA The Imperial March, covered by Richard Cheese and his crew with the usual panache. Fans take note, he'll be retiring after his 2008/09 set of tour dates. You may not have realized this but Richard Cheese is none other than Mark Jonathan Davis-- uh, not to be confused by Mark David Chapman... as I just mistyped in google. And just who is Mark Jonathan Davis? Well, he's the evil genius behind Star Wars Cantina from back in the day-- definitely NOT to be confused with Weird Al, as is often the case.

Mark Jonathan Davis - Star Wars Cantina [parody of Barry Manilow's Copacabana]
Mark Jonathan Davis & The X-Swing Fighters - The Phantom Medley [parody of too many songs to mention]
Pre-Cheese, MJD also did a medley just before The Phantom Menace was released and all of our hopes were dashed.

Josh Perschbacher - Duel of the Fates
The key theme from The Phantom Menace as rearranged for the organ by Joshua Perschbacher. It's definitely missing the epic O Fortuna-like chanting in an ancient tree language, but kudos for even covering it. If you dig it, he also covers the Imperial March and Cantina Band, available on iTunes, CD Baby, and elsewhere.

Patton Oswalt - At Midnight I Will Kill George Lucas with a Shovel
I don't listen to too many comedy albums, let alone multiple times. But this bit by Patton Oswalt just kills me every time, perfectly summing up everyone's general dissatisfaction about the prequels. Warning: not safe for the kiddies.

Some other links:

• Check out WFMU to hear The Bordens, a family band from Dryden, Ontario, cover the main Star Wars theme.
  
• See and hear a remarkable cover of the Cantina Band on a "Chapman stick", a wacky bass/guitar-in-one instrument thing I've never even heard of.
  
• Amie Street has Meco's Star Wars album FREE (as of this writing)... US only though.
  
• found this completely random video when I typed "Leia's Theme" in google. Starts off as some generic youtube house party video, then... well, just watch. (warning: some language)

Nothing but Star Wars

As you may or may not realize, today is May the 4th, otherwise known as Star Wars Day. Get it? May the 4th be with you, ho ho ho. But today is not just any Star Wars Day, this year is the 30th anniversary of Star Wars, which blew into theatres May 25th, 1977. So technically I'm celebrating a little early, but here are some Star Wars covers for ya.

No Doubt - The Imperial March (live)
From their Live at the Tragic Kingdom DVD.

Montefiori Cocktail - Theme From Star Wars (Spaghetti Western Version)
Um, ok...

Lounge Brigade - Star Wars
With lyrics originally by Nick Winters.

Anchorhead - Shredisode IV
An epic 13-minute death metal medley of the first film. Quite brilliant, really.

Buckethead - Star Wars
Now if we could just get Star Wars covers by Motörhead, Radiohead, The Futureheads, The Lemonheads, and Propellerheads we'd be set.

Ash - Cantina Band (live at ILM)
The cool thing about this cover is that it was performed live at Industrial Light and Magic studios, the legendary visual effects company started by George Lucas. Given that they even have an album titled 1977, you can imagine the band members are big Star Wars fans. The sound quality is also fantastic, straight from the soundboards. If you're an Ash fan, take a gander at The Ash Files, a comprehensive resource of live recordings with many recordings (such as this one) provided by the band themselves. And if you're particularly vigilant, there are several covers to be had there such as Daydream Believer (The Monkees), Only in Dreams (Weezer), I Only Want to Be With You (Dusty Springfield), and more...

Evil Genius Orchestra - The Asteroid Field
Meco - The Asteroid Field/Finale
Here are lounge and disco covers of The Asteroid Field, probably one of my favourite pieces of soundtrack music. I don't particularly remember hearing it when I saw The Empire Strikes Back the first time. Though I do remember first noticing it while at a friend's house playing Shadows of the Empire on the N64 and thinking "Isn't this the theme from Batman?" during the sweeping climax of the song (honestly, there are some vague similarities!). A couple years later I was at a relative's house in Toronto and they had a remastered CD of the Empire soundtrack. For some reason I just latched onto The Asteroid Field and listened to it repeatedly that summer through giant earmuff headphones while lying on their floor.